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How many times have you avoided starting something because you knew you couldn’t do it perfectly? I almost didn’t write this post because I couldn’t think of a title. Think Pink? No, cheesy. Something…about fall? Come on, Hannah, you’ve exhausted every possible fall quote.

I think most of you who read this blog know me personally, but sometimes strangers reach out and let me know they follow along on here or Instagram (hiiii Internet friends! Keep it coming! Words of affirmation is my love language!). I’m always worried that my sense of humor doesn’t translate through the screen and people are left thinking Is this girl for real???

Because I’m a frustrated perfectionist, I often will scrap a whole project before it even begins if I don’t think I can complete it exactly how I envision it in my mind. Or I’ll let my room become a complete mess if I can’t find a place for a single pair of shoes. Why even bother if it isn’t ever good enough?

So for my fellow perfectionists, I thought I would share a few things that encouraged me today:

You improve through daily practice, not by leaps and bounds. Natural talents and gifts are a blessing, but they can work against you if you grew up not having to work hard at anything to do well. Sometimes things don’t come naturally, and success is incremental. This is especially true with things like working out: we all want a six-pack and toned calves after our first day at the gym, but rarely are we willing to put in the work, little by little, every day.

Failure isn’t the end of the world and is a valuable learning tool. Trust me, I’m saying this for me as much as you. I am so afraid of failing that sometimes I won’t even try. But failure is feedback, and it helps you figure out what to do differently next time to succeed.

You are more valuable than the sum of your achievements. This reminder comes from an article I read by psychotherapist Katherine Schafler on Thrive Global. She says that “people connect most to the ordinary things about you,” like the way you can’t decide what to order at a restaurant, the long-winded voicemails you leave, or the way you play with your hair when you’re bored. In contrast, she says during therapy sessions something that people never say are things like “I miss the way he got a 3.8 GPA in college.” We’re proud of the accomplishments of our friends, lovers, and children, but when we really start to list the reasons we love them, those reasons have little to do with success.

So here I am, in an outfit that doesn’t look exactly how I pictured in my head. I couldn’t find a skirt or a pair of pants to go with this shirt-dress/sweater combo, so…I nixed the pants. No pants, no problem. ✌🏻

New York in the fall continues to dazzle me, even after 6 years. The leaves in Central Park, Prospect Park, and all over the city turn bright yellow, vivid red, and dusty orange for just a few weeks before winter weather hits. One of my favorite spots for beautiful leaves in Eastern Parkway in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, where my roommate Avery took these pictures.

A quote I’ve been seeing a lot lately on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook is “the leaves are about to show us how beautiful it can be to let dead things go.” Really cheesy, sure, but true! There is something about the visual representation of letting go that makes me want to apply it to my life. I’ve been working on getting rid of old clothes that don’t fit and bad habits I don’t want (does anyone else get home from work and eat an entire bag of discounted Halloween candy for dinner? Help). It’s a tough but rewarding season.

But hello, my favorite part of fall is and always will be the clothes. I am so happy to be past shorts season and onto ~sweater weather~!

I’ve been dragging my feet writing this post, even though I’m excited to share my experience with you guys and answer your questions. I guess it’s because posting a Paris recap means it’s really over! I enjoyed every minute of my 10-day trip and I am so happy to be back in New York, but a little part of me is bummed that this incredible trip is over. I guess that just means I need to plan the next trip to look forward to! 😉

So many people have asked about highlights of my trip and I’m not sure what to tell them because every day was great in its own way. The weather was warm and sunny, the food was delicious, and of course I loved seeing iconic landmarks. I had been to Paris before, two years ago, so I had a good sense of what I wanted to see again and what new restaurants I wanted to try. I tried to maximize my time but also enjoy a break from fast-paced New York and live a more laid-back Parisian life, if only for a week and a half.

I traveled with my roommate, Leah, and she found the most incredible AirBnb where we stayed. Parisian apartments tend to have charming peculiarities, and this one was no exception. The refrigerator was in an alcove down the hall instead of in the kitchen, and the door to the apartment could only be opened by pulling the door towards you and jiggling the key just so. We were also directly above several (incredible) restaurants and a bar. When the noise from the bar and restaurants finally died down at 1 or 2am, we were woken by the overwhelming smell of bread baking at 5am–not that I’m complaining.

Speaking of food:

Holybelly

A restaurant in Montmartre
Chez Michel

Folks and Sparrows

Those of you who know me know how much I love trying new reataurants. It’s one of my absolute favorite things to do in New York and anywhere new I go. The meal above from Chez Michel, while not the most photogenic, was one of the best I’ve had in my life. Leah and I went there on our first day immediately after dropping our bags off in the Airbnb because we were ravenous . I enjoyed it so much that I ended up returning on one of our last nights by myself. I put my phone down, drank a glass of wine, and enjoyed the most delicious steak and potatoes (pictured above) and rice pudding with homemade date and apricot preserves (not pictured because I was too busy having a transcendent experience. I never knew rice pudding could be so incredible).

A few of my favorite places:

Sadaharu Aoki for pastries and sweets

Buvette for breakfast

Chez Michel for lunch or dinner

Folks and Sparrows for coffee (and free wifi)

Onto the museums and sites! Some of you know I studied Media, Culture, and the Arts in college, and that’s actually why I was in Paris two years ago. Needless to say, I love art. I love museums, I love graffiti and street art, I love photography, paintings, sculptures, you name it. I also love tourist-y destinations like the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe. I even love the tourist spots in New York. There’s a reason that millions of people visit them every year, and it’s because they’re incredible. I feel blessed that I can see them whenever I want! Except Times Square, which is one of Dante’s circles of hell.

Anyway, my point here is that you probably know all of the touristy spots you have to visit–and if you don’t, feel free to ask!–but I’d like to share some of the places that you might not know about, but definitely should go to!

Louis Vuitton Foundation

If you’ve seen my Instagram, you know how much I love this place. The architecture is incredible and it always has new and interesting art exhibits. The museum itself is like a maze that I happily wandered around in all day–I walked about 4 miles just within the museum! It’s easily accessible by train and located in a beautiful park. I can’t recommend it enough.

Montmartre

Chances are you’ve heard of Montmartre, or at least seen pictures of the famous restaurant La Maison Rose that sits atop a hilly intersection there. So many artists lived or worked there (Picasso, Van Gogh, Degas, and Matisse, just to name a few) and Sacré-Cœur Basilica is at the very top. It’s a little bit out of the way on the outskirts of the city and requires a lot of walking, so you might be tempted to skip it. However, it’s easily one of my favorite places in Paris. I recommend going during the week, wearing good walking shoes, and grabbing a gelato cone to munch on while enjoying incredible views of the city.

Musée de l’Orangerie

This museum is located right by the Louvre and has a ton of dreamy impressionist art. It’s small enough that you can see everything, and of course my favorite rooms have huge Monet paintings and lots of natural light.

And a few more pictures:

The Louvre

Notre Dame

The Eiffel Tower

The Seine

The dreamiest facades

The Arc de Triomphe on our last night. They decided to close the stairs to the top early, for no apparent reason, and I was so disappointed but this sunsetwas really something else. We walked down the Champs-Élysées and shopped and then went back to our Airbnb to drink wine with some friends and it was still a great night!

Wow. Can you tell I like off-the-shoulder tops? I realize this is my third outfit post in a row featuring an off-the-shoulder top and I’m thinking maybe I need to branch out…but at the same time, don’t mess with a good thing, right? I’m still working on a post about my Paris trip, but for now, here is my first outfit of the day back in New York–all black, big surprise. This top can also be pushed up and worn to cover your shoulders if you get chilly (and I did, because I wore this on a rainy day) and is on sale now for under $10, which is basically free. Shop this whole outfit by using the links below! 🙂

You know the thrill of pulling off something that’s been in your head for a long time? Like when you have a brilliant idea in the shower and you write it down later and don’t forget any of it and it still sounds like a great idea? That’s how I feel about this outfit. I bought all the pieces separately and had an idea in my head about how I would wear them together, and when I finally put the outfit on with the cherry on top–my roommate’s cool thrifted cateye sunglasses–I felt good.

I was also thrilled that I was able to incorporate a lot of trends into one outfit that actually ended up looking, in my opinion, pretty classic. Off the shoulder, dramatic sleeves, big tassel earrings, and wide leg pants/culottes are all very trendy, but I didn’t feel like I was wearing a costume, even though this outfit is a lot more *loud* than anything I would usually wear. I felt very confident even though the outfit drew a lot of attention, which is something I normally try to avoid.

And can we talk about these puffy sleeves for a second? I don’t think I’ve ever owned anything with poofy sleeves like this before, and they were so fun and reminded me of Anne in Anne of Green Gables and her obsession with puffed sleeves. Then I read this article about my favorite (okay, everyone’s favorite) adaption of Anne and got incredibly sentimental and grew even more attached to the puffed sleeves.

If you follow me on Instagram you might have seen that I got accepted to Reward Style/LIKEtoKNOW.it and several friends have asked me what that means. If you don’t know, Like to Know It is an app you can download and connect with your Instagram account. When you screenshot a picture on Instagram that is enabled (you’ll know by the link and hashtags in the caption) you can shop that outfit directly through the LIKEtoKNOW.it app. You can also shop this outfit specifically directly through this link. And full disclosure–if you buy anything I link through the app, I earn commission. 🙂 If you have any more questions, please ask away.

I had a bad habit in high school of building up my makeup collection to the point of excess, inspired by beauty gurus on YouTube who had a whole room devoted to their makeup collections. At one time I remember having 14 different mascaras on hand, which was a point of pride in my young life. But because makeup doesn’t have an unlimited shelf life and since I actually didn’t wear makeup every day, I ended up wasting a lot of products that weren’t my favorite.

Lately I’ve made it a point not to buy things I don’t need. Even if I’m not living a clutter-free, minimal life, my goal is still to do more with less. I love to try new products, but I make an effort not to buy a new eyebrow pencil when I have one I’m still using. If I buy a product that really doesn’t work for me I return it or give it to a friend who will use it.

These products are favorites that I not only used up, but became a part of my daily routine, and I have repurchased at least once.

Bite matte creme lip crayon in Glacé

So to be technical, I used up a sample size of this baby, not a full size, but I have never purchased a full-size product of a sample so to me this counts! This is also the product that got me hooked on Bite as a brand, and now I own at least a dozen of their amuse bouche lipsticks and matte creme lip crayons. This color is my favorite and the formula is super smooth and moisturizing.

Glossier milky jelly cleanser

This is one of the first Glossier skincare products I purchased. I already owned and loved boy brow and the lip products, but I am pretty picky about skincare. I wasn’t a huge fan of the cleanser at first until I started using it in the shower to remove my makeup and clean my face all at once. I love jelly texture and the subtle scent, and it is very gentle on my sensitive skin.

Kiss New York Professional fine precision brow pencil

This is hands-down my favorite brow pencil. Kiss NY Pro sent me a box of their products to try last spring, so I have been using this for a year and have tried several products since, and it’s still the best. I wrote a whole post about how I do my brows with this product, so you can read that if you want more info.

Glossier boy brow

Boy brow has a cult-like following among Glossier fans, but to be honest when I first purchased it I didn’t think it lived up to the hype. My brows were pretty sparse from over-plucking, and it didn’t give me the shape and thickness that I needed. Once I spent a summer growing out my brows, boy brow became the perfect product to swipe on in a hurry if I’m doing natural makeup before work, or as a finishing touch after I’ve already filled my brows in with a pencil if I’m doing a full face of makeup.

Bare Minerals matte foundation

I prefer powder foundation over liquid, and I’ve been using this matte foundation powder for years. It gives great coverage despite being a powder and has a broad range of colors to chose from.

Essence lash princess

I’ve only recently started using Essence products after reading/watching a lot of great reviews online, and while I really love the brand as a whole, my favorite product has to be the raved-about lash princess mascara. It gives great length, volume, and curl, and is only $5 at Target or Ulta.

All winter I wear all black, and relish in how comfortable, warm, and effortlessly cool it is. I never have to worry about finding shoes to match my outfit, or about spilling my coffee and staining my outfit. But there is something about spring that makes me want to wear white and pastels. I’m currently putting together outfits for my trip to Paris in three weeks (!!!!) and this one is definitely coming with me.